THE YEAR IS 1977!
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Like all the tracks on Bat Out of Hell, this was written by Jim Steinman, who has a very theatrical style perfect for Meat Loaf’s operatic rock voice. Steinman said that the songs on the album are not directly personal, but are based on “obsessions and images.
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Singer-songwriter Todd Rundgren, best known for his songs “Bang The Drum All Day” and “Hello It’s Me,” was the album’s producer and also sang background on this track. The album earned a huge payday for Rundgren, who found himself free from the shackles of the legal tender. Flush with cash, he started a video production facility and made one of the first videos to air on MTV: the clip for his song “Time Heals”.
- The female vocalist on the song is Ellen Foley, who at the time was starring in the Broadway production of Hair. She was replaced on tour with Karla DeVito because Foley had other commitments.
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Meat Loaf convinced his record label to let him make a video for this song, which was a simple live performance clip, but very effective. Loaf was an established actor and brought his theatrical flair to the video. He also found a clever way to get it seen in the pre-MTV era: he convinced movie theaters to show it before midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a film he starred in and was becoming a cult classic. When MTV launched in 1981, they favored rock videos, but had very few available, especially by American acts, so they put “Paradise” in rotation, which gave the Bat Out of Hell album another bump in sales.
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